


Réalités nouvelles

by BeachSpirit



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Art Gallery AU, Art dealer!Bucky, Artist!Steve, I don't even know how this happened OK, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:48:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2760164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeachSpirit/pseuds/BeachSpirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So what does he actually remember about today's client? He was a guy, Bucky feels pretty confident that he's got that right. But that's all he has, though. The rest of his brain only supplies him with useless static.<br/>*<br/>Bucky works for his Godfather, Nick Fury, looking after artists at New York's elite SHIELD Gallery.<br/>He gets assigned to Steve Rogers, and Bucky worries that he won't be as professional as he hoped. Not with Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Réalités nouvelles

"James." 

 

"Mmfph." 

 

Bucky rolls over and snuggles down further into the pillow. God, he's tired. His mouth feels as dry as the Sahara Desert, and he estimates that he needs approximately three gallons of water and probably a decent meal of something dripping with artery-clogging grease to actually feel alive, but his current priority is another good few hours of sleep. 

 

" _James_." 

 

"Mm-nf-mph." 

 

Bucky scrunches his face up as a mysterious glare of light floods the back of his eyelids, making them glow an unpleasant orange. Utter darkness would be far preferable right now. His head hurts, a dull, throbbing ache that floats around in the back of his skull, somewhere between his eyes and ears. His tiny whimper of protest makes his throat hurt and scratches at it like sandpaper. 

 

" _JAMES_.' 

 

Bucky yelps and jerks as a glass of icy-cold water is tipped over his head. He gasps and squints at the shape in front of the blindingly bright window, which, sure enough, practically sears his eyeballs. 

 

"How was the meeting?" 

 

It takes Bucky a few minutes to recognise the voice, ringing in his ears as though its owner was yelling, even though Bucky felt pretty sure that whoever was speaking _never_ yelled. His foggy mind pushed an answer to the front of his consciousness, in the form of five-and-a-half feet of a permanently-composed, elegant, kickass redhead. Natasha, right. Makes sense. She does live here, just the bathroom separating her bedroom from Bucky's in their shared Brooklyn apartment. 

 

"Wha' meetin'?" he slurs, weakly waving a hand in front of his face in a pathetic attempt to shield his eyes.   


Did he have a meeting last night? No. No, he'd finished work early. Clint, Natasha's boyfriend, had organised to go out with his little cousin, Kate, as a congrats-on-starting-at-Julliard party. Bucky had been invited to 'help keep an eye on the kiddos,' AKA a handful of Kate's new college friends, overexcited and clutching their shiny, new, fake IDs. Clint also wanted to introduce Kate to Bucky's younger sister, Becca, a sophomore at NYU. Both he and Clint had agreed that it would be nice if they could be friends, and, if Bucky's memory is true, they now are, having got on like a house on fire. 

 

Bucky therefore blames Clint for the earth-shattering headache currently ricocheting off of the walls of his skull. Well, Clint and the tray's worth of triple shots Bucky had poured down his own throat at the nightclub. One of the clubs. Maybe the second one.  _A_  nightclub. 

  


"Your  _meeting_ ," Natasha repeats, her slightly-less-seemingly-disembodied voice slicing through his scrambled thoughts. "You know, with your new artist this morning." 

 

Bucky's eyes shoot open. 

 

"Shit.  _Shit_.  _SHIT_ ," he whines, high-pitched and panicked. He looks around frantically before being hit by a wave of nausea and flopping back against his mountain of pillows and groaning, covering his face with his hands. "Oh god, I'm  _fucked_ , I'm gonna get fired, I am  _so fucked_ , and -" 

 

"James, please," Natasha cuts him off. Bucky peeks through his fingers to see her hold up her palm. "Kidding. When have I ever failed you? You're meeting your newbie at ten o'clock, in the gallery. I assume Nick'll tell you more when you get to work. It's currently -" she looks at her watch, "- eight-fifteen. Now, shower." 

 

Happy to let the more than capable Drill Sergeant Romanoff take control, Bucky rolls out of bed, wincing slightly, and stumbles in the general direction of the bathroom. He grabs the towel Natasha holds out to him with a sheepish "thanks, Tasha," as she stalks off to the kitchen. Bucky crawls under the hot spray in the hopes of revival. He sends a prayer of thanks to a god he doesn't believe in anymore for whichever one of Natasha's rich, mysterious, Russian relatives that heavily subsidises their rent to allow them to live in a nice area in a nice apartment with a shower with good water pressure that an art gallery worker and a ballerina otherwise most definitely could not afford.

 

As he stands beneath the near-scalding spray and scrubs himself with shower gel - papaya-scented, Natasha's, hopefully she won't mind - he racks his aching brain for info. Today's agenda: meet new artist. He worked at SHIELD, an art gallery in Manhattan, as a sort of junior curator, meeting new artists and helping them organise their exhibitions. His godfather, Nick Fury, owns and is the Director of the gallery, and had generously given Bucky a job upon graduating college, just to tide him over until he could start pursuing his real dream. That was nearly six years ago. It was OK, though. He got to meet interesting people and had fun at work. He could have hobbies, too. That was enough. Dreams were for kids. 

 

So what does he actually remember about today's client? He was a guy, Bucky feels pretty confident that he's got that right. But  _that's all_  he has, though. The rest of his brain only supplies him with useless static. 

 

Bucky sighs and gets out of the shower, roughly drying himself and attempting to brush his teeth simultaneously, to save precious minutes. He styles his hair with one hand and a liberal helping of gel and pulls on boxers and a white undershirt before padding out to the kitchen area in search of his medicine, his lifeblood, his one true saviour: coffee. 

 

Clint is sprawled across the couch, looking about as wrecked as Bucky feels. Clint's purple button down clings to him, some sort of spilled alcohol from last night making it stick and staining his jeans. His rolls his head back lazily and squints at Bucky with bloodshot eyes, hair sticking up in all directions. 

 

"Hey, bud," Clint croaks. "How're you feeling?" 

 

"'Bout as good as you, from the looks of things," Bucky says, tipping a dose of painkillers down his throat and chasing it down with a glass of water. He picks up the mug of strong black coffee that Natasha's left out for him, that saint. "Kate OK?" 

 

"Mmhm," Clint closes his eyes again and leans back into the couch cushions, tugging a worn blanket around him more. Natasha had obviously deposited it on him out here as a thank you for not crashing into her room and passing out on her bed, waking her up, in the unholy hours of the morning. "Sh’ went back to Becca's dorm with a few others to keep going around three. You kept saying you had an artist to deal with in the morning, so we staggered back here."

 

"From where?" 

 

"HYDRA. Y'know, that new place in Manhattan." 

 

"Shit, I can't even remember."

 

"We were pretty hammered, not a surprise." 

 

Bucky scrubs a hand over his face and glances at the clock on the wall. Somehow it's almost nine already. 

 

"I'd better get on. You sure you're OK?" Bucky says. 

 

When he doesn't get a response, Bucky peers over and sees Clint's mouth hanging open as he snores softly. Bucky rolls his eyes and jogs to his room, hastily pulling on a black shirt, black suit, and black skinny tie. It might be dramatic enough to make his tired eyes and messy hair look like some sort of deliberate aesthetic.  

 

Bucky spins sarcastically to a low whistle as Natasha meets him at the front door, dressed in yoga pants and a tank top, ready for the gym. They shout goodbye-drink-lots-of-water-and-take-a-nap to a near-comatose Clint over their shoulders as they leave and Natasha locks up behind them. 

 

"So, are you ready for today?" Natasha asks as they head towards to elevator.  

 

Bucky's job title is officially 'junior curator' at the gallery, but Nick's main orders to him were just to liaise with the artists, especially ones with long-running or ongoing exhibitions, and organise the workspaces. SHIELD has several small studios that the artists who have work being shown there can use at their leisure. It means that Bucky has to know at least a little about each of them so that they've got everything they need and he can help them in choosing pieces for their displays. This usually means that he gets a nice, thick information file to read about their art and spends a few hours online reading up about them. Horrific time-management skills means that he often does that the night before, clutching a mug of hot cocoa and cocooned in blankets. Last night's plans had kind of messed his system up. 

 

"I have never been more unprepared for anything in my life," Bucky mutters, trying to remember the guy's name so he can Wikipedia him. He remembers Fury giving him a file last Wednesday. "Did I mention this guy last week? Saul, Scott, something like that?" 

 

"Steve," Natasha says. "Steve Rogers, twenty-six." 

 

" _Steve,_ that’s it, thanks,” Bucky says, then catches the slight twitch in her otherwise neutral expression out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, you  _angel_ , you've been doing your slightly-creepy-spying thing again, haven't you," Bucky beams at her. 

 

Natasha rolls her eyes and brings up the note she's made on her phone, walking and talking with startling efficiency as they head to the subway station. 

 

"Steve Rogers, twenty-six, born in Brooklyn, New York. Went to Central St. Martin's for art school in London, England, straight after high school. Works in both realism and pop art, comic-inspired art, that kind of thing. Graduated top of his class, where he was quiet but reasonably popular and well-liked. Split from girlfriend Peggy Carter when he moved back to America, and she stayed in London. Lived in DC for a while before deciding he was too homesick for New York and moving back a couple of months ago. Now he lives in Williamsburg, with his friend, ex-army-turned-counsellor, who moved back over with him from Washington."

 

"You're terrifying, you know that?" Bucky goggles as Natasha smirks. "How do you  _know_  all this?" 

 

"If I told you I'd have to - no, OK, Wikipedia, Facebook, Instagram," she checks them off on her fingers. "The digital age is a gift." 

 

"Right, I'll bear that in mind," Bucky grins. "Have a great game of twister." 

 

"It's called Yogalates, James," Natasha yells over her shoulder as she jogs for her train. 

 

*** 

 

"Mornin', Phil," Bucky smiles, his third cup of coffee of the day clutched in his hands as he steps through SHIELD's Staff-Only doors. 

 

"Good morning, Bucky," Phil smiles back, warm and tranquil. "Are you excited about today?" 

 

"Today? Oh! Oh - uh, yes, yes of course," Bucky says and takes a swig of his coffee. New artist. Right. 

 

"I'm  _very_  jealous of you, I must say," Phil, whose attention is now directed at the computer on his workstation, chuckles emptily. Bucky suspects that he most definitely is not kidding. "I've been a fan of Mr Rogers's work for a long time." 

 

"Oh, then, why didn't - didn't you, y’know, ask to...?" Bucky frowns, his brows knitting together. The staff at SHIELD have an agreement that if a staff-member is already a fan of a particular artist, they get first dibs.

 

"Quite busy with Wade, at the moment," Phil's smile tightens and his eyes go a little glassy. Wade was proving to be quite a handful, Bucky knows, not sticking to deadlines and going AWOL at very unfortunate times.  "Take good care of Mr Rogers, Buck." 

 

"Will do," Bucky says, and goes to his workstation. 

 

Bucky's barely been sat down for a minute when - 

 

"Bucky." 

 

"Uncle Nick!" Bucky forces himself to grin widely and look as A-OK as possible with a skull that feels like it's splitting in half. "Good morning, how’re you?" 

 

Nick Fury peers at his godson with his good eye, the one that isn't covered by his eye-patch. 

 

"Fine. Good morning," Nick replies smoothly. "You're meeting Mr Rogers down in the foyer at ten, you're going to show him round, and then you're going to take him into a meeting room and answer any and all questions he has." 

 

Bucky nods and smiles up again brightly. 

 

"To be young and able to live on two hours sleep again," Nick mutters and strides away. 

 

Bucky sags in relief and scrambles blindly in his desk drawer until he finds a small bottle of eye drops, putting some in. He looks blearily at the clock on his phone. 9:43AM. 

 

It's going to be a long day. 

 

Bucky allows himself another fifteen minutes of wallowing in self-pity before dragging himself to the bathroom and checking his reflection. His eyes look OK now, not bloodshot, and dark circles and pillow creases more or less gone. He runs a hand through his hair that, unfortunately, only makes it look even more dishevelled, and mourns the faint shadow of stubble that Bucky's half-asleep self hadn't managed to get rid of. He straightens his tie, checks his outfit for marks, runs his hands over his suit and straightens his cuffs as he goes out to face their new artist. 

 

Bucky paints his best professional smile across his face and strides purposefully to the foyer, giving a nod of recognition when he spots Nick standing by the window on the far side, speaking quietly to the tall, blond man with his back to Bucky. 

 

"James, Steve, Steve, James," Nick says as Bucky reaches them. Nick only ever uses Bucky’s real name in front of customers, or when Bucky’s in deep shit.

 

"James Buchanan Barnes, pleasure -" he says, the rest of his sentence already forgotten and catching in his throat when the guy, Steve, the artist, turns around. 

 

"Pleasure's all mine," Steve says. His voice is deep, with a gentle Brooklyn twang that's sexy as  _fuck. "_ Steven Grant Rogers _,"_  Steve mirrors Bucky’s introduction and clasps Bucky's extended hand in his own. "Call me Steve." 

 

 _"_ Call me Bucky _,"_ Bucky breathes, looking up into a pair of the bluest eyes he’s ever seen, surrounded by smudges of impossibly dark eyelashes 

 

"Bucky, be sure to remember to have Steve sign the contacts after the tour," Nick says, the tiny flicker in his eyes showing that he knows exactly what state of thinly veiled meltdown his godson is drowning in right now.  

 

"Will, do, Mr Fury," Bucky says overly-brightly. 

 

"I'm so excited!" Steve grins at them both like an over-excited puppy. "Show me everything!" 

 

"Aye-aye, Captain!" Bucky laughs and does a corny two-fingered salute and  _why the fuck did he just do that._

 

But Steve laughs and motions for him to lead the way, which, arguably, is worse than loudly proclaiming Bucky to be a pathetic loser and storming out. 

 

Instead, Bucky has no option but to swallow the silent scream in his throat and stride purposefully to the nearest exhibition space, Steve cheerfully trailing in his wake like a disgustingly attractive, 6”2 Labrador retriever. Bucky tries to get a grip on the situation, and steers Steve towards the nearest exhibit, something Bucky vaguely recognisees as being about oceans. Or maybe landscapes. Looking up at the nearest artwork, a huge canvas with thick, bold brushstrokes in blues and purples, Bucky finally gets a flicker of functioning in his scrambled brain. 

 

"SHIELD began working with Thor Odinson last year," Bucky recites in his best smooth tour guide voice. "Thor is inspired by the beauty of nature, especially light and natural phenomena -" 

 

"Oh, Thor!" Steve interrupts brightly.

 

The tips of Steve's ears go pink as he realises he's cut Bucky off, but Bucky smiles back encouragingly. When Steve's talking, Bucky can look like he's listening intently, - which he is, thank you very much, - but it's also the perfect excuse to drink in every inch of Steve Rogers's perfect face.

 

"We knew each other in Europe," Steve explains. "It was Easter break at college, and I had no relatives around England, so I flew to Scandinavia to do some landscape work. Did some stuff for Greenpeace while I was there, too, working with seals. Thor and I met through that. Great guy." 

 

Bucky’s mind immediately ( _traitorously_ ) provides him with the image of two blond gods saving baby seals on the beach and painting together. Bucky doesn't know how much more of this he can take. 

 

*** 

 

The rest of the tour passes in a haze of Bucky stammering his way through an encyclopaedia’s worth of facts about the artists SHIELD manages as Steve nods and listens attentively. It would be so much better if Steve had just looked around the room blankly, bored, even, instead of focusing every fibre of his being on Bucky and the art he talks about. Steve’s wide blue eyes watch Bucky as they walk through every single exhibit in the place, from the Xavier’s trippy, psychedelic drawings to Lehnsherr’s prize-winning metal sculptures. Steve nods and comments and hums appreciatively, asking just the right number of questions to stay on the right side of the interested-annoying line. It’s a blessed relief when they finish the last exhibit – Wade Wilson’s tattoo-inspired giant canvases – and it’s time to head into the back and sign the paperwork.

 

Darcy’s jaw drops as he leads Steve past the admin desk, and Bucky purposefully avoids catching her eye. It would be comic, if Bucky wasn’t internally in the state he’s in now. They sit at Bucky’s workstation and talk through the terms of the contract, Bucky’s work cell number and the work e-mails they’ll use to communicate – _let me give you my personal e-mail address, too,_ Steve insists, seeing as he’s _terrible at checking my work one, you wouldn’t believe,_ and Bucky’s gut twists itself into about four knots.

 

"So, if you'll just sign and initial where the arrows are..." Bucky says brusquely, shuffles the stack of papers and hands them over to Steve with a Very Professional smile. 

 

Steve takes them from him, returning a dazzling smile of his own. Their fingers brush and Bucky has never felt so betrayed by a cheesy romantic-comedy trope in his life. His hand physically burns were Steve's skin brushed it and Bucky's stomach somersaults outrageously. Bucky watches Steve’s dark lashes fan against his cheeks as he lowers his eyes to give the paperwork one last glance-over and sign on the dotted line.

 

“Thank you, Mr Rogers –“

 

“– _Steve._ ”

 

“Thank you, Steve,” Bucky says, more softly than before. “We look forward to working with you. You’re an exceptional talent.”

 

Steve flushes a dusty-rose pink almost immediately, and Bucky uses every ounce of his self-control not to just get up and leave.

 

“Ms. Potts will show you out,” Bucky manages in a surprisingly level voice, and succeeding at his usual honey-tone reserved specially for their best artists and most loyal customers.

 

Steve nods his thanks and they stand and slightly awkwardly shake hands, and Pepper is sleekly ushering Steve out under a warm cloud of professionalism and well-engineered conversation.

 

Bucky does his best to ignore the swivel desk chair that appears next to his, as well as Darcy’s low, long whistle as the one-way glass of the Staff-Only doors allows her to shamelessly ogle Steve’s _incredible_ ass as he climbs the low, glossy stairs to the exit.

 

“I know,” Bucky sighs.

 

He is so, _so_ fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a vague idea of where I want to go with this (I'm not a planner), but I kinda like writing this AU (and hey I hope you liked reading it if you're down here). Hence the 1/? in the chapters section. The next chapter will probably also have some of Steve's POV, and Bucky's too.  
> And some good ol' fashioned pining.  
> Hope you enjoyed etc.  
> Any mistakes, please do point 'em out if you see 'em. I tried to get them all, but some could've escaped. 
> 
> A note on the title: the name of an art movement, founded in Paris in the 1930s, meaning "new realities". May or may not be relevant to possible future chapter plans.


End file.
